ANOTHER ADVENTURE OF THE TWO FRIENDS--THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW--A
SINGULAR SPOT ON THE WALL--A CLIMB, A TUMBLE AND A PURSUIT--HOW IT ALL
ENDED FOR THE TIME.
We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie, at the conclusion of a former
chapter, coming out from the lodgings of the latter, on Bleecker Street
near Elm, Leslie accompanying Harding out to a car on the Bowery before
betaking himself to bed. "Man proposes but God disposes," says the
French proverb: There is "a divinity that shapes our ends," even in the
matters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars. It was somewhat
longer than either had expected, before he reached the "desired haven"
of home and a bed-chamber.
It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery, and the
Third Avenue cars, on one of which Harding was going up, were running
less frequently than early in the evening. There was not one of the
green lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker
Street, and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make
its appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as people very soon
do who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea-kettles, or marriage-days,
or any thing of that kind); and they walked down to the corner of Prince
to meet the tardy conveyance. There was a green light coming up, some
blocks down the Bowery, but it seemed to the two sleepy fellows as if it
would never reach the corner. They walked listlessly a block or two down
Prince Street toward Broadway, still arm in arm as they had left the
house on Bleecker. They wheeled to walk back. Suddenly the eyes of
Harding were attracted by the very bright light in one of the upper
windows of an old brick house on Prince Street, large and stately and
giving evidence of having once been the residence of some person of
fortune, though now a little dilapidated.
"People in that house must have an interest in one of the Gas
Companies," said Harding, "by the quantity of light they show at this
time of night! Why, the window is all ablaze!"
Tom Leslie looked up, as his friend spoke. They were on the opposite
side of the street from the house in question, and consequently had a
fair view of the lighted window. It _was_ very light indeed, a perfect
flood of gas-light pouring on a white curtain that partially covered the
whole sash. Partially, not altogether. Whether accidentally or by
intention, it was swept away at the lower right-hand corner, leaving a
little of the top of the white wall of the room visible, with the edge
of the ceiling. Was there ever a man (or woman) who did not look in
through a half-closed curtain, precisely because there is no propriety
whatever in doing so? Willis has made some of his most taking verbal
photographs, during his "lookings on at the war" at Washington, from
the glimpses caught of the lower half lengths of notables, more or less
undressed, through windows supposed to be closed against outside
observation.
Both Walter Harding and Tom Leslie took an eager look up at the white
wall and the edge of the ceiling, in the upper chamber of the house on
Prince Street. Harding either had sharper eyes than Leslie, or stood in
a more favorable position, for he saw what Leslie did not, and his
discovery was communicated in the brief exclamation:
"By Jupiter!"
"What?" asked Leslie.
"Look!" said Harding, drawing his friend's head into position for a
better view. "If that is not a secesh flag draped up near the ceiling,
may I never brag of my eyesight again!"
Tom Leslie took a nearer look. "If it is _not_ a secesh flag," he said,
"draped over some kind of a gilded ornament like a star, may I never
find another opportunity to look at a pretty girl through this
double-barrelled telescope."
And with the word he had whipped out an opera-glass from his pocket,
large enough to have been formed out of two moderate-sized specimens of
the optical instrument he had named, and levelled it at the object on
the wall. His observations and those of Harding through the same
powerful instrument resulted in the same conclusion. The two red bars
and one white one of the Confederate flag, with the blue field in the
corner and meagre number of stars, were all plainly visible, and beneath
the flag was a gilded circle, some four or five inches in diameter, with
a radiating centre.
"A nice house that, I don't think!" was Tom Leslie's not very classical
comment, as he took the double-barrelled telescope finally down from his
eye, after a second inspection. (It may be mentioned, in a parenthesis,
that the Third Avenue car had some time since rumbled by, and that the
very existence of that entire line of communication had been forgotten
by the two friends.) "Where is Provost Marshal Kennedy, I wonder?"
"Oh, it may not be quite so bad as you think," said Harding, reading the
whole of his friend's thought. "Who knows?--that secesh flag may be a
trophy won by one of our soldiers, and brought or sent home."
"Humph!" said Tom, significantly. "That won't do, Harding! If the flag
was a trophy, and in the house of a loyal man, it would not be quite so
neatly draped on the wall, with the lodge emblem of the Knights of the
Golden Circle under it!"
"Phew!" said Harding, "is that really the emblem?"
"_The_ emblem, and nothing else," answered Leslie. "There is mischief in
that house, and the nest must be looked after."
Suddenly, and while the two friends yet looked, there were dark shadows
flung on the white curtain, as if of moving figures, and then one
shadow, as if of a human arm, began to move up and down on the curtain
and kept moving steadily. Directly there was one quick sharp scream,
followed by no other sound, though both listened intently. Then a figure
came to the window, and apparently looked out, disappearing again in a
moment and leaving every thing as before.
"By George, I cannot stand this!" said Leslie.
"Nor I," said Harding, moved by quite a different feeling. "I am getting
sleepy and must go home."
"Must you?" said Tom Leslie. "Well, you are not going a step. You cannot
be spared just yet. Do you see that tree?"
Harding had seen the tree for some minutes--a tall one with wide
branches, standing a little to the left of the window. But he did not
see anything special in the tree, while Leslie did, and that made the
great difference.
"I am going on a perilous expedition," continued Leslie, in a bantering
tone, but his voice sinking lower, almost without his being aware of the
fact, and jerking off his boots meanwhile on the sidewalk. "If I never
come back, comfort my bereaved wife and children. If I break my neck,
see me comfortably buried, _without_ a coroner's inquest if possible."
"What are you going to do?" asked Harding, with a faint premonition,
however, of his intention.
"I am going to get a peep in at that window," was the reply, "or I am
going to break the most precious neck in America in making the attempt.
I used to be able to climb, though some years ago. Keep still, here
goes!"
There seemed to be at the moment no passers in the street, and Harding's
anxious gaze around showed no policeman in the vicinity. By the time he
had fairly spoken the last words, Leslie had thrown off his broad hat,
crossed the street, and commenced climbing the tree. Harding followed
and stood under the tree, as if Leslie was going to throw down apples
and he must catch them. Leslie was a little awkward, but hugged the bark
handsomely, and was soon on a level with the window. Harding saw him
distinctly, by the reflected light from the window, clutch his arm
around one of the main limbs, and throw his head and body forward so
that his face was not more than a foot from the window. He had not
looked in more than a moment, when Harding heard him utter a quick,
short cry, and the next instant he seemed to be trying to regain his
hold of the tree. Then there was a rush, a tumble, and he seemed to be
falling. Harding threw himself beneath him, and Leslie half slid and
half fell to the pavement, with such violence as to send both sprawling
into the middle of the street. Harding was not much hurt; Leslie seemed
to be injured, and limped a little as he sprang up.
"Are you hurt, Tom? What made you fall?" was the double question that
Harding attempted to ask.
"My God! can that be possible?" was the inconsequent answer, and his
hand went up to his head as if the organs of thought were for the moment
disordered.
"What do you mean? What did you see, Tom?" was Harding's next double
question. Leslie was pulling on his boots.
"See? Nothing--every thing! I will tell you all about it when my brains
get settled!" was the reply. "I have simply been frightened out of my
boots--no, I left my boots down here. But I was frightened out of the
tree, and came devilish near to killing myself and _you_. Eh, didn't I?"
"Never mind about that! Tell us what you saw?" said Harding, whose bump
of curiosity now began to be seriously agitated.
"The red woman! witch! devil! What does it all mean?" was the torrent
of incoherence which next burst from Leslie, not affording Harding a
very close solution of the mystery, but promising at least something.
"Well?" said the latter, expecting more. They had again crossed the
street, and stood opposite the house of mystery. Leslie was endeavoring
to brush his soiled clothes with that most difficult of all brushes, the
hand. Harding was looking full at the window, and waiting for the
further explanation. Suddenly, a carriage whirled through Prince from
the direction of Broadway, and pulled up immediately before the house.
Leslie stopped brushing his clothes. At the same moment, a head was
again thrust against the window, and immediately withdrawn. Then the
light against the curtain dimmed suddenly. Leslie "put that and that
together" with the celerity of a lawyer and the confidence of a man of
the world. The people in that house were going away. Where? That was
something to be looked into.
"You know where the livery stable round the corner is, on Houston?" he
asked hurriedly of Harding.
"Yes," was the reply.
"I am too lame to run fast," said Leslie, speaking very rapidly. "We
must follow those people, if they go to perdition. Go to the stable,
quick--do. There is always at least one carriage standing ready, and
have it here as soon as money can bring it. I will watch meanwhile.
Hurry! hurry!"
Probably Harding, who was rather precise in his ordinary movements, had
not gone so fast in ten years. He was around the corner before the last
words had fairly left Leslie's mouth--going as if an enraged woman and
three lively policemen had been close after him. Leslie stepped across
the street again, took a glance at the number on the lamps of the hack
as he passed, and then ensconced himself in a deserted doorway very
near, to watch what followed. Every moment that Harding was gone seemed
an hour. Would they come out and get away, after all, before the coming
of the other vehicle? What kept him so long? (He had been gone about
half a minute!) Had there been, for once, no carriage in waiting at the
livery? or had Harding concluded to go to sleep on the road? And what
the deuce did it all mean--the half-dozen persons, and one a woman
almost completely stripped, whom he had seen in that moment's glance
into that upper chamber? And the red woman!--aye, the _red woman_!--that
bothered Tom Leslie the worst, and as he had himself confessed,
frightened him.
At this juncture the door of the house opened, and a man and two women
came out. The man, from his stature and general appearance, and
especially from his hat, struck Tom as strangely like the tall Virginian
whom they had seen two hours before on Broadway. One of the women might
be the girl, Kate; and the third--Leslie indulged in another bit of a
shudder as he thought that possibly the third might be the red woman.
They were all muffled up, however, and Leslie dared not quit his shelter
to observe them more nearly. The driver kept his seat on the box. The
man opened the door of the carriage, all stepped in, and the carriage
whirled away out into the Bowery and up town. There they were, going,
gone, and Harding not yet returned with the means of pursuit! Confusion,
vexation and every cross-grained word in the language! So thought
Leslie, as he dodged out to the Bowery and watched the disappearing
carriage. It had not turned off into any one of the cross-streets, and
seemed making for one or the other of the forks of the avenues at the
Cooper Institute. Half a minute more, however, and it might as well be
the proverbial "needle in the hay-stack" for any chance they would have
of finding it again.
Hark! yes, there came tearing hoofs round into Prince Street from
Crosby, and the lamps of a carriage shivered with the speed at which
they were going. The horses were on the run. It was _their_ carriage
after all, for nobody else could be in such a hurry. Twenty seconds
brought the flying carriage to the corner--a second's pause--a hail from
each of the friends--and Leslie was inside with Harding, and the
carriage was dashing up the Bowery about as fast as two good horses
could run, with Leslie and Harding each peering out of the opened
windows at the side, to see if they could catch any glimpse of a
carriage ahead.
There is no doubt that the horses attached to the hinder carriage,
whatever may have been the opinions of those attached to the one
before,--thought that the rate of speed was a little rapid for a hot
midnight in June; and certainly one or two pedestrians who came near
being run over at the crossings just below the Cooper Institute, had an
impression that some rebel prisoner must be running away from Fort
Lafayette or some government official trying to stop one. As Harding and
Leslie neared that highly respectable but very ugly monument to the
profits of iron and glue and the public pride of Mr. Peter Cooper,--of
course there arose a question, the carriage being out of sight, which of
the two branches it had taken. The Third Avenue being the plainer road,
Leslie decided for the Fourth, and with a shout to the driver just
before they reached Tompkins Market, the horses' heads were turned in
that direction, and away they went up the comparatively quiet avenue.
At the rate they were going they soon overtook a carriage, as they would
have overtaken any thing less rapid than a locomotive or a whirlwind. It
was lucky that Leslie had taken the precaution to note the number on the
hack, as otherwise they would have been at fault after all. As they
dashed by the carriage, which was going at good speed, that cosmopolitan
saw that the number on the lamps was a wrong one; and so they kept on.
Another carriage was passed at the same speed, their horses by this time
dripping as if they had been plunged into the river, but the driver of
hack No. 2980 going ahead under the influence of a private five dollars
and the promise of an extraordinary glass of brandy. At Twenty-eighth
Street they jerked the check-string and the driver pulled up. There was
nothing in sight, short of the railroad tunnel.
"We have lost them!" said Harding, whose organ of hopefulness was not so
large as that of his friend.
"Humph! maybe so!" was Leslie's reply, his eyes peering out of the
windows on all sides, meanwhile. "One thing is certain, that I am not
going to bed until I find that hack and know where it has been
to-night!"
At that moment, with better fortune than two such wild-goose chasers
deserved, they saw the lamps of a carriage flash across Twenty-eighth
Street, going up Lexington Avenue.
"By George! there they are!" said the sanguine Leslie.
"Maybe so!" was the reply of Harding, echoing the words his friend had
used the moment before.
A word from Leslie to the driver, and away went the carriage down
Twenty-eighth Street toward Lexington Avenue. On the avenue there was a
carriage ahead, driving at good speed but not at such a headlong rate as
their own had been pursuing. Leslie pulled the check-string. "Pass that
carriage!" he said to the driver, and the horses sprung out at full
speed again. The speed of the carriage ahead did not increase: whoever
occupied it probably had no idea of being pursued. Before it had gone
two blocks further the pursuers had passed it, and Tom Leslie brought
his hand down upon Harding's leg with a force that made him wince, as he
saw the number on the near lamp.
"Got them, by the tail of the holy camel!"
It was indeed the same carriage that had left Prince Street less than a
quarter of an hour before. They were now ahead of it, and it would not
answer either to slacken speed so perceptibly as to let it pass, or to
turn back to meet it. Either course might excite apprehension, if there
was really anything worth watching in the adventure. A word more to the
driver arranged all. They wheeled down Thirty-fourth Street to Third
Avenue, drove rapidly around the two blocks to Thirty-sixth, and came
out again on Lexington, with the carriage just ahead of them and a fine
opportunity to dog it at leisure.
Two or three minutes afterwards the leading carriage wheeled out of
Lexington Avenue into East 5-- Street, not very far from the Eastern
Dispensary, which has lately so well supplied the place of a soldiers'
hospital. It was driving slowly, now, and unless some peculiar dodge was
intended, Leslie knew that the occupants must be near their destination.
To follow them further with the carriage would be both useless and
dangerous. Stopping the carriage and telling the driver to wait for them
in the avenue half a dozen blocks above, the two friends alighted and
followed their quarry on foot. They were close behind the carriage,
now, but keeping the sidewalk, and even if observed they might have been
supposed to be a couple of late wayfarers plodding home, and not _spies_
as they at that moment felt themselves to be, in however meritorious a
cause! About half way between Fourth Avenue and Madison, the carriage
stopped before a handsome brown-stone house. "Nothing venture nothing
have!" is an old motto that never wears out. Before the rumble of the
carriage had fairly stopped or the driver could have had time to turn
around, the two friends were over the area railings and under the steps.
Not a dignified position, perhaps, nor a pleasant one in which to be
caught in the event of a sudden opening of the area door; but other men
have risked as much for a much idler curiosity!
Perfect silence under the steps, except two loudly-beating hearts and a
little quick breathing. Leslie ventured a look around the corner of the
stoop--saw the driver get down and open the door, and the one man and
two women alight and go up the steps. For the rest, they were obliged to
depend upon the ears. One of the women spoke:
"It will come to-morrow at midnight?"
Harding could feel that Leslie shuddered, and could distinguish his
sharp whisper to himself:
"The red woman's voice! I knew I could not be mistaken!"
Then the voice of the man said: "Wait a moment!" and Leslie fancied that
he recognized that voice quite as well as the other. Then there was a
quick pull of the bell, the sound tinkling far back in the still house.
Then came two sharp pulls after the pause of a moment, and then a fourth
after another pause. Not until the fourth tinkle had been heard was
there any other sound within the house. Then a door was heard to open
and shut, and feet were heard in the hall. The man's voice said "All
right!" and the carriage drove away. An inner door opened, but the outer
one (as the friends could easily distinguish by the sound of the voices)
remained closed until some one within asked:
"How many?"
"Seven!" answered the man's voice. Then the outer door opened, all went
in, the doors closed and were locked, the footsteps in the hall died
away, and the friends heard no more.
Very gingerly, as if some depredation on personal property had lately
been committed, the two volunteer midnight guardians of the public weal
climbed again over the area railings, after all had been still for a
moment. Not a word passed between them. Harding stepped softly up the
stone steps to the door and noted the number on it, then down again, as
if he was treading on eggs. Leslie counted the number of houses from the
corner, with steps not more sonorous, and looked around to see whether
they could possibly not have been watched by a policeman, when getting
into and out of the area, because they did _not_ intend to steal. All
these things accomplished, and apparently nothing more to be done, they
went quietly down 5-- Street to Lexington Avenue and sought their
carriage.